


Or Maybe it Would

by MayatheBee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, F/M, M/M, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, OT3, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, The Golden Trio, sort of canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2019-12-30 14:56:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayatheBee/pseuds/MayatheBee
Summary: And they were probably going to die for each other.  It was just fact.  You had to acknowledge it without paying too much attention to it.  It wasn’t going to save the world.  Or maybe it would.Who honestly believed three teenagers spent months in a tent alone and everyone kept their pants on and it never got awkward enough to enter the main plot?  The Golden Trio negotiates their relationship within the confines of most of the major plot points of the Deathly Hallows.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am working on this as I go and posting because it's way easier to write if it feels like someone is waiting on the other end to read, even if that someone is completely in my head. I'm home for a few weeks after surgery and I've been sitting on this project for enough time that it's getting stupid. If not now, when? I hope there are at least a few people who haven't tired of Horcrux hunt re-writes. It's such low-hanging fruit. I can't help it. I'm here to remedy the injustice of no tent fucking because it's been bugging me from day one. This picks up the first night at Grimmauld Place.
> 
> Love,  
> My
> 
> Oh, P.S., I checked the box for underage because all parties are about 17, and we all know this, and at this stage in the game, everyone who has to be warned about that is probably new. Welcome! You're in luck if you came for the angst and tent fucking. Because that is what we are all here for. I hope you like it.

Hermione wasn’t sure if her throat was swollen because of the screaming or the dust.   She may have fallen asleep. She may have been close to falling asleep. Through the musty air, the smell of adrenaline mixed with sweat made an uncomfortably familiar background.  The lumpy cushions pressed into her sore muscles and she trained her eyes on Ron’s chest, rising and falling, and willfully ignored the shadows, shifting in the periphery. It didn’t matter why she was choking.  It didn’t matter _ that _ she was choking.  They were breathing.  

 

Harry hadn’t moved, but Ron might be awake.  He had gone quiet some time ago when the hour of the night necessitated some feigned attempt at sleep, but he rustled in a fitful way that made her doubtful he was resting.  She wondered if she should say something, and drew her breath as he rolled to face her. 

 

“Hey there you.” His voice was thick, low. She saw concern register in his sunken eyes, still blue in the dark.  Her face must be doing something. She closed her eyes and reset it manually. 

 

“I might have been sleeping.  Did you rest any?” He grunted noncommittally.    “So much for beauty sleep.” She mustered a small, pinched smile.  He stared down his nose solemnly at her.

 

“You’re beautiful.”  His fingers were inches from hers.  Her throat constricted further. Ron’s expression was entirely too serious.  She was accustomed to his face appearing as it did, slightly off due to newly mended injuries. It was the straight line of his mouth, his teeth set together as he watched her in the dark, that looked wrong now.  

 

“I’m terrified.”  She stopped holding her expression and it did, whatever it did.  He threaded his fingers through hers all at once and squeezed. She squeezed back, angry at how much the flutter in her stomach felt raw in the back of her throat and reminded her of fear and bile.  She wanted to roll off of the ridiculously uncomfortable cushions and into his arms. She didn’t care about the way he smelled or she smelled or any of the unspoken rules about how this inevitable thing was supposed to happen.  There were only so many safe places in the world left. But Harry was breathing steadily, sweating, needing them. He was missing this moment.

 

“Do you think he has a plan?”  Ron averted his eyes, rolling them to the ceiling so he didn’t have to look at her while she processed the unspoken part.   _ And what do we do if he doesn’t?   _

 

And she didn’t know.  She had spent so much energy, so much of herself, cramming every potentially useful thing into a bag, no matter how remote the possibility of its utility  Hermione had told herself that this was the best effort she could have made towards planning. But this was not an abstract scenario and she wasn’t sure where the right things for it could be found.   She ran her thumb along the calluses on his palm and bent her head to his, coming just to edge of her cushions. 

 

He blinked at her slowly, considering her silence.  His free hand fiddled with the zipper of his sleeping bag.  His jaw was softer. She could hear her own heart beating in her ears and feel it gathering in the rasp of in throat.   She started to lean. 

 

“Not without him.”  She winced. He looked determined, hurt.  Three small words and he’d managed to summarize the situation entirely.  She loved and hated him for putting his finger so squarely on it and for being the one to say it out loud.  His fingers fluttered in hers. He smoothed the blanket around her.

 

“You’re a better person than I am.”  He had turned his head and they watched Harry together.  

 

“In no universe is that true.”  She knew he really believed that and it scared her.  She knew the kind of things that wandered around in her head, the things she never ever said, and maybe never even let herself think all the way through.   _ This is impossible.  We’re going to die. And fuck everyone for making this our fault.   _ And fuck Ron for looking at her like that, refusing to see that part of her that was angry, that wanted to escape.  Fuck him for waiting for her to tell him what to do. And fuck Harry for sleeping there, so broken. Fuck him when he work up and joined Ron in the waiting to be told.  And the worst part was that she knew she wasn’t a monster. She just couldn’t let herself drown in that sea of righteous anger. There was so, so fucking much of it to go around.  It wouldn’t save the world. Or maybe it would.

But not today.  Her bones hurt. He insides felt grimy with exhaustion and she wanted so much to feel normal.  But not even this was normal. Two breathing, gorgeous, bruised up people were beside her. And they were probably going to die for each other.  It was just fact. You had to acknowledge it without paying too much attention to it. It wasn’t going to save the world. Or maybe it would. 

 

Jesus, and if they died, what if the never got around to it?  What if there was another night like this and then another and the moments just passed because it was never quite right and no one wanted to be the first to say, and then all hell broke loose.  Everything was terrifyingly out of control already. And hell had not yet broken loose. 

 

She didn’t give him the option.  She kissed him all at once, surging forward and pulling herself on top of him. She ground her hips hard.  “Ron.” He moaned into her ear, not quite kissing her back, his hands gripped her around the middle, squeezing almost too tight.  “Please, just a little bit.” It wasn’t her imagination, he was hardening as she slowly rocked her hips. Of course he was. It felt fantastic.  Their raw nerves were so close to the surface. She was vibrating in his arms. She just wanted to push through the way it made her ache and feel the explosion on the other side.  And they would feel so guilty later. They would throw it on the pile with everything else. They would make it right later. 

 

Oh, it wasn’t going to take very long.  Everything snapped loose in a sharp kind of way. She would have pulled back because it was so intense, it kept happening, it felt completely foreign.  She wondered what would happen next. He was pulled her down again, harder, and again, each time relentlessly pushing against her hard enough to chafe through their favorite pajamas.  She had packed them on top. Should she waste any topical potions on this tomorrow? It didn’t matter. She met him, kissing him hard as it finally subsided. He was pulling at her, rocking her hips back and forth over the soft flannel of his pants.  

 

She had come against Ron and he was in the process of bringing himself off against her.  Fucking lucidity. It had ruined this too soon. They were going to die for eachother. They would make it right later.  She whispered this as Ron pulled his forehead to her and came as silently as she had. She whispered it again.  He kissed her on the mouth. Merlin, but she loved him. He fell asleep holding her hand.

 

She told herself she would try to sleep, that it was okay if it didn’t happen.  It ached. And she just didn’t know who to be angry with anymore. 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Ron felt like puking. The inside of his face hurt and he didn’t care that being a wizard meant his broken bones could be quickly mended whereas injuries such as they had sustained yesterday would be life-threatening without magic. It fucking hurt. He told Hermione so in his head. They would have the argument later.

Hermione was asleep on her side, her eyebrows pulled together even as she rested. Ron thought of her face the night before, so carefully blank, and then for a hysterical second contorted in an expression Ron wasn’t sure about. After that, he didn’t think about her face. There was something vaguely removed about the memory of Hermione moaning softly above him, smelling like herbal soap, her hair obstructing half the view down the top of her shirt. His tender lap was a tangible reminder of how insistently she had ground down. He could still feel weight of her spread through him when she begged him so urgently that she hadn’t quite managed to whisper. _Please, just a little bit_. It felt like he was replaying the memory through a screen door. It was not an unfamiliar feeling. Extraordinary things happened to them all the time, and there were often few spectators to corroborate that the occasion had been momentous. Hermione in his arms was a miracle.

Oh, but Harry. Where was Harry? Where the _fuck_ had Harry gone? Hermione deserved a goddamn minute to sleep. He was going to go find that wanker himself and make sure he wasn’t channeling He Whose Name Takes Too Long to Even Fucking Think No Matter What Euphemism You Use in a musty closet somewhere. Ron was hungry. He would check all the rooms on the way to the kitchen.

There were mostly skeletal remains of leftovers under expired stasis charms in the cupboards, though the charm on the icebox was intact. Neither were there Harry nor Harry artifacts to be found when he arrived. Maybe there would be something easy he could eat while he searched somewhere else. He wasn’t sure what had been left behind when the Order left. Bless his mother for leaving some eggs and other staples, even if it making it edible would be a chore. He displaced a jar to examine the second row of contents. Maybe they had already hurt Harry. Ron absently opened another age-warped cupboard with a pull. What if Harry had not been sleeping? What if he had heard them and had lain there in the dark, listening to them without him? His empty stomach rolled.

There was a movement that echoed in his brainstem and flooded his mouth with a coppery taste. The thing darted behind an adjacent jar and Ron swallowed his horror. It was a spider. It was a murder machine made only slightly less horrifying by its size. He could kill it twenty seven ways without his wand. He gaped at it. Ron slammed the cupboard door shut and vowed to come back later a better man. He backtracked, disappointed to be leaving the kitchen empty handed.

Hermione was sitting up on the floor, unreadable in the shadows of the blankets she had gathered around her. What in the world should he say to her? His mind hummed uselessly.

“Can’t find Harry.” It was the safest conversational inroad by far, even if his absence was also potentially their fault.

He watched her stiffen, square her shoulders and draw in a breath. “Ron. Oh God, you don’t think he was awake last night, do you?”

“Dunno. I wondered that too.” He hovered in the doorway.

“No.” Hermione dropped her blankets and rose. She shook her head. “No. He was definitely sleeping. I watched him after…” She stopped lamely and turned to fuss inside her bag, extracting toiletries and knocking over something inside loud enough for him to hear the thud across the room. She finished and stared at him in that spooky way that looked completely reasonable unless you were paying attention.

“I didn’t yell for him or anything yet. I didn’t want to wake you. You looked like maybe you had just finally gotten to sleep.” He wondered if his breath was horrible. He wished she would hand over his toothbrush. He would have grabbed it from the pile, but he couldn’t remember what color his was supposed to be. “He’s not in the kitchen.” He shrugged.

“I gathered you were though.” She tossed the comment over her shoulder. Ron winced. He had tried to be quiet. He darted after her, swiping the orange toothbrush from the table on the way by. The other options were red and pink. He was probably fucking orange.

“Hermione!” She slowed but didn’t stop. “About the night. About the other thing.” She kept moving. He was talking to the back of her head, the outline of her hair was hazy and backlit. “It means something to me, you know.” She poked her head into the first doorway, calling softly for Harry. He checked the adjacent room. Just dust and naked walls with spooky outlines etched on them.

“Of course it does, Ron.” She sounded like she was trying not to sound tired. “But it’s not just about you and me, is it?” She rounded a corner and mounted the first set of stairs.

“So you really think there’s no way he saw and got the wrong idea?” She stopped abruptly and wheeled around. Ron winced. She was two stairs ahead, eye level.

“Ron Weasley,” she hissed. “By all means, keep running around screaming about it and see if he catches on now.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just. I thought maybe things would be different now.” He watched her shoulders sag. She cocked her head at him. Her eye sockets already looked bruised.

Her fingers fluttered at her sides. He wondered if she would cry. “I don’t even know where to start. It was wonderful, but I lost control. We shouldn’t do that again. That’s not how this is supposed to be.” Ron processed her words in his gut. _We shouldn’t do that again._ He must have looked like he felt because she continued on all at once. “You know I love you. Of course I love you. But we both know this was never about just you and me. We just can’t get distracted right now.”

He wanted to punch her, just for a second, but the feeling was mixed with the memory of her tits in his hands and it was confusing. “Says the one who came hopping into my bed last night!” She blanched, shushing him.

“I just think right now it would all be too much for Harry. As wonderful as last night felt, we shouldn’t go there without him” She spoke quickly, like she had practiced. “I just think maybe now’s not the time.”

“Well then when the fuck would be a good time, Hermione?” He took a breath to continue but bit back the snarl that had almost gotten the better of him. _Shall we have a nice three way orgy after we all take the Dark Mark? Shall I fuck you on Harry’s grave?_ When exactly would this magical right time be? They had all been silently waiting for it. They had agreed to wait for it. But Hermione had broken the rules already. He knew he never would have have been the one to cross the line and he wished he didn’t know this about himself.

She gazed at him blandly, almost smiling. The vacant expression in her eyes tugged hard on his anger. He hated everything in the world that taken Hermione’s face and arranged it that way. “Ron, I’m sorry. I just, can we please talk about this after we find Harry?” He shrugged at her. It was too bloody early. Everything hurt and his dick hurt extra. Harry continued to be who the fuck knows where. If they found Harry, they could make something to eat.

“Yeah, I’ll finish looking around down here and you start up there.” Ron didn’t wait for her to answer, he turned and made for another hallway, calling, yelling now, for Harry.

He was just wondering whether they should search the cellar when Hermione bellowed from somewhere above. She sounded only loud, not upset, which meant Harry was fine. He must have wandered off to find a room dark enough to match his feelings. Git. But he felt like he could breathe again, so he made for the kitchen.

Ron was hungry enough to face the prospect that the spider in the cupboard may have relocated to some new booby trapped location. The eggs from the icebox were not rancid at first whiff so he scrambled them and settled for toast when nothing else exciting presented itself. Praise Molly, there was a little coffee too. He decided to wait, just a few minutes for them, leaving their plates under charms while he tried his best to remember the right spell to grind the coffee beans.

There wasn’t enough coffee in the world for this. Yesterday his brother had gotten married and it had been a decent enough time until it had all gone to shit. He had thought they were safe. Brilliant Hermione had managed to pull them through again, planning for things he had not even thought to consider. But then it hadn’t mattered and they found themselves again trying not to die in that Muggle cafe. After all that, they had chosen to hide in a house with a soul that would eat them if it could. And then Hermione had been over him. _Please, just a little bit._

Hermione had played the Harry card on the stairs so easily and had neatly extracted herself from having to do anything at all about the fact that she had, just hours before, come undone in his arms. But Harry had needed them and they both knew it. That part was familiar. He had played the same card the night before. Because there was a Harry card. Of course there was a Harry card. The foreign part was that now someone might lose their resolve and end up in another bed.

It was a possibility. It had happened. And it felt so recklessly good, even with the layer of guilt that floated over the memory. Harry had slept on. Even as Hermione’s body had moved over him, as he marveled at her swaying shadow and memorized the way she held her breath, he had registered wrongness. He knew she battled the same lonely feeling because it was exactly what she had been begging him to ignore. _Please, just a little bit._

What would happen if they reached for Harry? Fragile, stupid, git. Asking anything of Harry at the moment was as bad as offering him anything, even if it was an orgasm. It was an Arithmancy problem either way. Harry’s reactions were becoming more difficult to predict. Harry was prone to make everything about his damn scar and Ron couldn’t be properly mad about it because everything was about his damn scar. He couldn’t even be mad at the bloke having a martyr complex. Well he could. And he was. He just felt worse about it.

The way he felt about Harry had never changed, just as the way he had felt about Hermione had not particularly changed. He just understood it better as they got older. That isn’t to say he understood much of anything at all. It was defensibly borderline normal to wank along when Harry cast a bad silencing charm behind the curtains of his bunk in Gryffindor Tower. It was perhaps less normal to imagine being split between your two best friends while you did it. But it had all been wanking until last night. Thoughts that crossed one’s mind in a masterbatory state were often best left unexamined in the daylight. It wasn’t even the most complicated thing in his life. Things wouldn’t have been any easier if holding Hermione in real life had changed his mind, if it hadn’t felt lopsided somehow. Or maybe it would. It didn’t really matter. He hoped Hermione and Harry would hurry the fuck up.

Hermione called for him upstairs. It was definitely the kind of summons to be answered at a run.

 

 

Ron was buoyed by their frenzied progress in the decades-old mystery of R.A.B. and the locket. But once Kreature had gone after Mundungus Fletcher, there was nothing to do but wait. That wasn’t so awful when you knew what you were bloody waiting for. At first, they were sure they shouldn’t start anything overly involved because Kreature would be returning at any moment. When he didn’t, Hermione buried herself shoulder deep in her beaded bag. She frowned as she peered inside; her muttering echoed strangely.

Ron stretched out on the worn settee across the room from her. He stared at the clouds of dust swirling in the sunlight leaking between the curtains. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He eventually retrieved one of the many books Hermione had piled next to her chair and flipped through it without really looking at the pages. Harry must have felt similarly at odds, settling on the floor with an old charms anthology.

Stupid Harry. He had spent most of the day looking like he was going to jump out of his skin. Ron didn’t like the manic look in his eyes because he wasn’t sure what Harry was going to do with it. Harry’s energy fluctuated frenetically. He was unpredictable, and that fact was never far from Ron’s mind. Harry rested his head in one hand and ran his other through his hair, tugging on the ends. Something about the way his clothes fit him seemed off; it usually did. Today, his sleeves were too long. This was ridiculous. He broke the silence.

“Any leads there, mate?” Ron forced lightness into his voice. Harry turned to him slowly. He was smiling, but only just.

“Just looking for something to pass the time really.”

“You and me both.”

“Fancy a game of chess?” Harry’s suggestion was half-hearted, but Ron scanned the room for a set. There had been one when the Order had been here. It wasn’t where he expected it to be.

Ron shrugged. His brain felt fuzzy and he just couldn’t agree to any more planning. “Maybe let’s just sit here for another minute, yeah?” Ron leaned his head back and caught a sunbeam on his cheek. He closed his eyes. “Mmmm, the sun feels good. Maybe we’ll have a rest? He kicked out his legs to optimize his napping position and found Harry had scuttled backwards into the pool of light on the floor below. He couldn’t blame Harry. He had talked up the sunbeam. He found something else to do with his legs, kicking them up over the side of the loveseat. His arm dangled awkwardly. It was too close to Harry.

Even so, he may still have fallen asleep if Hermione had not taken notice however long ago.  She was silently trying to get attention without attracting Harry’s. Her question was clear. _What are we going to do?_

Well, she had asked. He inched his arm forward, meeting her eyes. He could see confusion there, which was fine. It was something. And then his hand was on Harry’s shoulder, first barely, then when no objection came, kneading circles with his thumbs. Harry’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sleeping. He held Hermione’s gaze for some time, shrugging when he finally looked away. _If you don’t like it, come and stop me_. Hermione shut the beaded bag and Harry opened his eyes at the sound, blinking slowly.

Hermione stood and deliberately set herself next to Harry, closest to Ron’s feet. She rested her head on Harry’s shoulder, tucking herself under his arm. “Harry, oh Harry.” She stroked his hair while she whispered into his neck. Harry said nothing, but Ron felt the tension slowly leave his shoulders. There was the sound of them breathing, there was a creak of something from a floor above and for a long time, there was nothing else.

Ron wondered if he was the only one who was squirming on the inside. This fragile moment existed in a time before nothing irrevocable had happened, but it was the first time that it might. They had never been truly alone together, just the three of them. There had always been classmates and bunkmates and family and the public, even if the three of them were having a private conversation somewhere. Except now, there wasn’t. There was a lump in Ron’s throat. He took a breath, and then another one. When dropped down next to Harry, it almost felt like an accident. He hit the floor roughly and found himself with one hand on Harry’s knee to steady himself. He looked up and found Harry staring at him with his mouth half open.

This was mad.

Ron leaned in.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the delay. I am not in love with this chapter, and it's quite short, but I think it's time to stop messing with it for now. I may come back and re-tool things later, but it's time to move things on so we can get to the tent fucking. (Seeing as I've yet to write that part yet, I should probably stop talking it up.) Thanks for reading!

Life jerked Harry around by the navel.  Significant events in his life routinely unfolded at breakneck speed. Traveling from one circumstance to another at such a ludicrously abrupt fashion made it difficult to anticipate and therefore nearly impossible to habituate to any particular status quo.  Harry wasn’t sure what his baseline was, but he knew it was fucked up. He also had a rather uniquely honed skill for very quickly getting a rough estimate of whatever the fuck was going on. Or so he had told himself.

 

How he had Portkeyed into a situation where Ron had his hand on his knee and was looking at him like that, Harry was not sure.  They had been waiting and bored and maybe about to nap, but now Ron’s hand was heavy, purposeful, on his knee cap and Hermione was breathing in his ear, hot, in the sunlit patch of the library floor.  His instinct was to freeze. If he did nothing, he might not shatter this moment. Then Ron had tumbled down next to him and Hermione gasped, too loud, like a squeak, and it echoed . She picked up her head from Harry’s shoulder and her hair got in his mouth.  She was looking at Ron, she must be, but Harry could see nothing through the curtain of her curls. He could hear only his own breathing and he wondered why he couldn’t make it sound normal. He tried not to pay attention to it, but he felt light headed so he must be doing something wrong.  Hermione swayed next to him in a movement he had seen her execute a million times. She reached up and twisted her hair back. He watched her neck curve and her chest arch. Hermione meant business, but something about it seemed impossibly different.

 

Harry had not prepared himself for the moment when Ron’s mouth came crashing over his.  He had never dared to dream; it hadn’t seemed worth the heartache. Harry was sure that Ron and Hermione loved him and would do whatever was in their physical power to help him, no matter the cost.  It would be selfish to ask any more of fortune. He had never even seriously allowed himself to entertain the thought. He couldn’t invite himself into the relationship that had been so very clearly almost happening since the beginning of time.  Ron and Hermione were for each other. The end.

 

But now Ron was climbing into his lap and Hermione was moaning in a way he had never imagined she would.  It was a soft, low sound when she exhaled. He wondered if she knew she was doing it. Ron’s hands were on the back of his head, pulling him, not roughly, but insistently up to meet him.  The absurdity of it welled up in Harry and popped like a bubble. He wanted to laugh. It felt so very unreal. Ron was humming into Harry’s mouth. Harry rocked his hips against Ron before it occurred to him that he perhaps should not have.  Ron, once again, was exactly what he needed. He pushed back against Harry enthusiastically. Hermione was standing now, very still. She was chewing on her lip. Harry pulled his face away. He couldn’t bring himself to break contact with the rest of Ron.   

 

“Hermione,” Harry ground out.  Her eyes locked with Harry’s. Her gaze was steady, but unreadable.  He wasn’t sure what he was asking, what he was hoping for, but he said her name again.  Impossible friction was stuttering through Harry’s nerves. Hermione appeared at his side and he turned his head just in time to see her t-shirt fall on the other side of Ron.  Her skin was pristine in the afternoon sun except for the pucker of her war wounds snaking beneath her bra. There was a cluster of moles above her navel, but Harry had known that.  He had seen Hermione in a bathing suit before. Ron must have been noticing the same things because his his reached out and stroked them, brushing his thumb along her rib cage.

 

Harry kissed Ron’s fingers and Hermione’s speckled skin between them. The world was still ending, the sun was still shining and they were still waiting on a house elf.  Hermione’s hands were in Harry’s hair and he rested his head against the plane of her stomach and watched them. Ron was stroking his cheek. Harry found himself being coaxed up.

 

He stood as Hermione turned out of Ron’s arms and into his.  Her eyes were warm again. Her hair was wild. She smiled when she kissed him, but she pushed her body into him and he stumbled against the back of the settee and sat down hard.  She climbed next to him, but it was hard to pay attention because Ron’s hands were unfastening Harry’s jeans.

 

Despite the bounty of surreal things in Harry’s magical life, Ron Weasly’s wry grin as he shucked his own boxer shorts made the short list.   And then Ron’s mouth was on him and it was over. It was a good idea. It was a bad idea. It wasn’t an idea. It was happening. Harry’s head fell back and Hermione kissed his neck.  This was mad. He reached for Hermione and she twisted helpfully as his hand snaked beneath the elastic of her black briefs. He wanted to freeze, there in the warmth of inside Hermione, inside Ron, and maybe he did.  Hermione twitched against his fingers, whispering into ear his ear, “Shhh. Shhh. Shhh, Harry, Shhh.” Her lips brushed against his ear and he looked down into Ron’s eyes. Something there made Harry very glad that Ron was fighting on his side.  He tried to warn him, but Ron swallowed when Harry came and moved behind Hermione, grinning at him and wiping the corner of his mouth.

 

Ron added his weight behind Hermione, finding friction and pushing her onto Harry’s hand.  He reached around and stroked Hermione’s skin, her breasts, Harry’s hair, his hand where it met Hermione.  She tightened around Harry’s fingers, whimpering and then pitched over the edge. Harry watched her face contort and relax.  He watched Ron’s jaw go slack and met his eye before his head fell forward into Hermione’s hair.

  
  
  
  
  
  


The light was waning when they finally coaxed themselves up and into the kitchen to scavenge.  The silence was frustrating. Harry couldn’t figure out how to break it. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with his body, or how he was supposed to stand next to them with his hands at his sides.  He could feel the air around each of them. They agreed on dinner, eggs and toast again, with barely more than gesture and found themselves huddled at the end of the long kitchen dining table, ravenous and smelling sharp.

Hermione managed to eat half of her plate and pushed around her eggs with her toast without looking up.  Ron cleaned his plate and eyed Hermione’s leftovers. She sighed and vacated her place at the table, pushing her plate in front of him.  Harry took small bites and waited for Ron to look up. He didn’t. Even the tips of Ron’s ears were red. Harry admired the blush and the blurring his freckles.  With the lid off the thought he couldn’t help himself. He knew how Ron’s skin tasted. And he wanted so much to hop across the table and feel the heat of Ron’s skin under his hands.  But was that something Harry was now allowed to do? Was that something he should want to do? What was supposed to happen now?

In the silence punctuated by Ron’s utensils, he could imagine all kinds of things.  He was sure they were talking about him at every opportunity. Perhaps Ron and Hermione were deeply regretting what had happened and were looking for a way to say so.  Perhaps they believed that Harry needed physical touch and acted out of duty. Perhaps this was a strategy to strengthen the bond between them. Perhaps it was pity.

Hermione returned and handed Ron a bundle of clothes and his orange toothbrush.  Harry couldn’t blame her for prioritizing washing up. Ron appeared amenable, and all but licked his plate before leaving the silence all but unbroken muttering, “I’ll just be a few,” or something to that effect as he disappeared upstairs.

Hermione extracted two more neat stacks from her beaded bag and laid them at the other end of the table.  She gathered the dishes and set to washing them, her back to Harry as he finished the last of his coffee. There was a towel set neatly on the sideboard and Harry set to drying.  With so few dishes they quickly found themselves without any excuse for the silence. He was going to say the wrong thing, he was sure.

“I don’t want to come between you two.”  Harry hung up his damp towel and turned to face Hermione.

“There isn’t an us two, it’s us three.” They were the right words but her inflection didn’t match.  It didn’t feel reassuring. Her face didn’t change as he moved into her space. Her expected her to pull away, to take a breath and start a lecture.  She let him pin her to the pantry door with his hips. In all the years he had known Hermione was a girl, he had never dared to imagine a day or a dark corner where he and Hermione made these sounds alone together.  Or he had, of course he had, but it felt exhilarating and new to turn his full attention to the idea.

 

“We all love each other Harry.”  She kissed his temple. She kissed his scar.   “And that’s the only part that’s easy.” He wasn’t sure why he felt so angry.  He wasn’t sure why he was wasting this impossible moment. He pushed his shoulder into hers, pressing the length of his body against her.  The pantry door creaked. Everything fucking creaked. The shabby grey of the aged wood matched the gloomy light in the sparse kitchen. The Blacks had no need to decorate places only house elves belonged.  

 

“It’s not fair.”  It wasn’t meant to come out as a whine.  He felt her chest move against him. She was laughing.  She kissed him hard. Her eyes were open. Harry’s jaw was sore.  Hermione tasted like coffee. His ears were ringing. She was pressing her hips against him and there was nothing to do but lean in and meet her.  He needed air, but he could wait.

 

Her felt her fingernails.  He felt her teeth.

 

“This is a luxury.”  She spoke into the side of his neck.  “This is a liability.” He barely recognized her voice.  “And you know it.” She kissed him again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In May, the chapters are short, as are my notes about them. Life looks different in June, I hope.

Lupin had arrived with all the news that wouldn’t be helped by finding the locket.  Or maybe it would. What else could they do? Hermione wished this Muggle-born Registration bullshit felt more surprising.   Despite the foreshadowing, the change in the world was still abrupt. The rules about who was part of the wizarding world shifted overnight and people were expected to simply go about their lives.  It seemed as though they were. Too many people were more than happy to oblige because they happened to not be muggle-born.

 

All of the sudden magic was something to be stolen?  Anyone who seriously thought this with a straight face needed to prove their own magical bonafides.  The feeling of magic bubbling up inside was unmistakably innate. That well-intentioned people believed this paper-thin propaganda seemed ludicrous.  Magic had always been too good to be true. She had known somewhere inside herself that the part of her that had always been special, been stronger and stranger would come at a price.  It was foolish to think that she had already paid it.

 

Ron had promised to play the game all the same, proposing to claim Hermione was his cousin.  He would have too, he would still if she agreed. Really, what was another layer of bizarre on top of the rest?  He was fierce and reactive and missing the point completely. She loved him. She was tired of trying to explain things to him.

 

The mores the wizarding world had always seemed too blunt to her, too brutal for assurances of basic human safety.  That this world cared so little about the damage to individuals was not news. It was fine to break things if you could right them again.  There seemed no sense that people would be any different. The notion came into sharper relief when she started almost dying. It occurred to her that most witches and wizards knew what it felt like to almost die.  Their very human bodies remembered that pain and fear, even when relief was almost instant. In some ways, it is easy to forget what that felt like when it wasn’t happening. In other ways, it made for its own kind of war wound.   That cavalier attitude toward violence was not contained to the war front. She had started almost dying at Hogwarts, as had plenty of other people she knew. It had always felt fucked up.

 

Remus had pushed all of Harry’s parental abandonment buttons and the air had gone out of the room.  Lupin might have been able to help more, had Harry not sent him away so forcefully. They didn’t even have time to properly soothe him before Ron ended up in a wrestling match with Mundungus Fletcher.  

 

Now there was a next step, a clear villain, the relief of that fact allowed her to ignore the gravity of what would actually be required to execute the task, for a minute.  There were plans to be made and supplies to be assembled. She could do this. Harry and Ron brought her along because they believed she could do this.

 

Harry and Ron.  She couldn’t think about this and them.  And that was the problem, wasn’t it? She knew they had been rash and sloppy and that she was just as guilty as either of them. But Harry had broken up with Ginny for a very logical reason.  Romantic entanglements were absolutely exploited. Not only that, it was a distraction. She hated the tinge of grime and ache that would forever float over her memory of the first time they had been together.  She wanted better for the best thing in her life. But life might very well be ending soon. Delaying gratification could be permanent. This was all the more reason to fight like hell to make sure that didn’t happen.  

 

But what were they supposed to DO?  The last time they had tried to quietly enter the Ministry, it had not exactly been subtle.  And they had failed. It seemed unavoidable that they had to infiltrate it again and with their famous and undesirable faces.  Undesirable. Desire was not the fucking problem. The irony made Hermione giggle. Ron poked his head into the living room, all eyebrows.  She fixed her face.

 

“Sorry.” She said, apologizing for who the fuck knows what, “I was just thinking about how to get our undesirable faces into the Ministry.”

 

“Undesirable, eh?”  Ron leered at her. It pissed her off even though she had just laughed at the same joke.   She had been halfway down a plan rabbit hole and now Ron was here, ignoring all the relevant parts and making everything about his cock immediately.  It had been his specialty lately. Ron couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

 

It had been pleasant the first time she had come upon Ron with his hands in Harry’s jeans under the breakfast table.  She may never forget the way Harry’s eyes had met hers, and then rolled back to the ceiling. Pleasant was perhaps not the right word for what quickly became a six a.m triple wankfest born of insomnia and fueled by Kretcher’s overstrong coffee.  She had certainly been a willing participant.

 

But it was near constant.  Ron lingered in the bathroom when she showered and had expected to be invited in. He usually appeared at her side as soon as she sat down on the couch to open a book. It was hard not to think of him as pawing at her.  He certainly had more success with Harry. She was sure that Harry had been pulled into even more rooms than she in Ron’s quest to “christen every room in this damn depressing place.” But Ron was almost always the initiator.  He appeared to be scanning every moment for an opportunity to get one in. It was more than annoying. It was counterproductive. No one was looking for a way into the Ministry with a dick in their mouth.

 

This was why they had to pull it back.  It was going to seep into everything and color their decisions.  They couldn’t afford to let it. It wouldn’t help to be mad about it.  Or maybe it would.

 

She could tell by his expression that she had rolled her eyes at him.  “Ronald, can you not?” She might as well double down if she’d already hurt his feelings.  

 

“What’s with you?”  He looked stung and stopped mid stride, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

 

“Just trying to single-handedly come up with a plan, I guess.”  She pointedly swept her gaze around the detritus of useless books that had piled up around her beaded bag.  

 

“You’re doing this all by yourself, then?”  Ron’s voice pitched higher as the storm clouds gathered on his brow.

 

“It sure as hell feels like it!”  His indignance wasn’t unpredictable, it proked a feeling she couldn’t swallow.  “What are you doing all day, Ron?” She stood up. She clenched her teeth, but it was too late. “We have to make a plan!  I don’t have time to get you off seven times a day!”

 

“You don’t have time to get me off seven times a day.”  He repeated her words very quietly.

“Yes!”  Hermione was yelling now.  She was trying not to. “I know this is news to you Ronald, but, the war didn’t stop!  I know all you’re thinking is, ‘Oh good, we’re fucking now!’ but I am still over here trying to make sure we don’t all die!”

 

Ron’s ears were red.  He sputtered. “You.” His voice was venom.  “You started this.”

 

It was unusual that their yelling had attracted Harry.  He usually steered clear of anything that smelled like an argument.  But he was there, standing in the doorway looking confused and perhaps like he had just woken up.  He had not been there when Hermione had started anything. She gestured at Harry, _now look what you did_.  

 

“And maybe I shouldn’t have!”  She looked at the floor, at the cracks in the ceiling, at her useless beaded bag.  Ron stormed out of the room and past Harry.

 

“We are NOT fucking, Hermione!”  He spat over his shoulder, halfway up the stairs.  “You read a lot of books, you should know what fucking is!”

 

“Yes, Ronald.”  She pushed past Harry and screamed up the stairs after him.  “Excuse me for not wanting to lose my virginity in the middle of this death trap clusterfuck of a shitstorm.”  She couldn’t breathe. She was sweating and her clothes itched.

 

He wheeled around at the top of the stairs.  “You. Go to hell. And stay there.” He looked like he might come pitching down toward her.

 

“We’re there, Ronald!  Look around!” She stood, fists at her sides, chest heaving as he stared at her.  Then he turned and stalked up the next flight of stairs, leaving her to wonder where Harry had gone.

 

That night, Harry slept in Sirius’ room and she returned to the semi-habitable bunks she and Ginny had once shared.  Ron must have found somewhere, or perhaps he didn’t sleep. She heard something moving around in the kitchen in the middle of the night. The silence was in Grimmauld Place was always incomplete.  Hermione warded the door until she could think of no more spells. She cried until she threw up. And then she read until she fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the massive delay in updating. I won't abandon this fic, but am not sure what the pacing will be like from here on out. Health and life and so on. Hope you're well!
> 
> Love,
> 
> My

Ron reflected darkly on moments up until this one that had seemed shitty and hopeless.  Things had still felt awful when he had a roof over his head, food in his stomach and Harry and Hermione wanted him around.  It had felt like rock bottom then. Undoubtedly, another fresh circle of hell lurked beneath this one as well. Nothing was resolved yet.  They had executed the only part of the plan that had been a plan at all and now all they had to show for it was this new lean reality of running, a  momento that made him feel extra shitty. Ron was currently wearing it as jewelry. 

This was not fucking camping.  Ron lay in the bottom bunk and listened to whatever hellish combination of precipitation was dripping off the tent.  This wet, thick sleety snowy garbage had been falling for days. It was early in the night, but there wasn’t anything left to do or eat, so they had given up and gone to bed.  Ron was tired in a way that sleeping did little to remedy. There was nothing to eat and a thin layer of magic between them and every basic human need. They were just as likely to die stupid and hungry and cold after eating the wrong mushroom than anything else. 

And as far as Ron could see, there was No. Fucking. Plan.  They were staying alive and biding time. They were searching for nothing.  They had gotten into the Ministry and all just about died. They had given up their beds and Kreatcher’s cooking in exchange for a camping trip and a locket that caused more problems than it solved.  They had no idea how to destroy the thing. He got to wear it around his neck until they solved the mystery. He knew it made him moody; he knew it made small things seem bigger. But he couldn’t argue with his thoughts when he wore it.  They were his thoughts. And they had a point.

There had been tension snapping through the air since Hermione had rebuffed him.  He recalled that moment with the same sick feeling in his gut that had appeared when let a quaffle into an undefended ring: surprise, horror and the sense of something unfixable. He had not known what to do next, so they had done what they had always done.  They avoided each other and returned to interacting first about basic common needs. 

Hermione asked him for the salt at dinner three days after the row his stomach had uncoiled slightly at the thought that this storm too, might pass.  In not taking sides, Harry had taken one quite clearly. Everything else stopped and they threw themselves into planning. At first, the included him, but they did not invite him, but as the details of the plan came into focus, it became easier to fall into their old roles.  By the time the day of the Ministry arrived, it almost felt as if he had never held either of them. As long as he kept moving forward, he could pretend that he hadn’t almost gotten what he’d wanted most. Wanting it again felt normal. Everything was always fixed with time. Nevermind that time was a finite resource.

The wind whipped through the trees and Ron imagined wet and slimy leaves snagging in the stringy dead grass of the clearing outside.  Every forrest sounded different to him now. The rustles of the tent were familiar. Canvas sighing and old things settling. Then there was another sound, more rhythmic, still intermittent.   A squeak. Hermione’s bunk was tucked around a corner, picked deliberately to be as far from the boy’s bunks as possible without disrupting spaces designated for other functions. She hadn’t said this explicitly, but Ron was sure.  He heard her sigh, quietly, against her will. It was a sound, he had only recently catalogued. It flooded him with rage and lust in equal measure. He knew that silencing charms were imprecise in undefined spaces, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she was playing games.  She wouldn’t.  

He imagined her, wrapped in blankets smelling faintly of cat, her eyes closed, jaw set.  Under the blankets, he knew one hand worked with focus. He wondered what she was thinking of.  Likely, she imagined someone who could please her better. It wasn’t as though Ron hadn’t had a wank in this tent. That she chose herself instead of him made him furious, but furious was not the first think he felt.  He couldn’t help it. He knew the bunk would creek. He would give himself away. Hermione would know. But she thought he was an uncontrollable pervert anyway.   But this hadn’t been his idea to begin with. He reached below the covers, hating himself, thinking of her face, covered in sweat, resting across the bare skin of Harry’s stomach.  Even now, he imagined an embrace that didn’t include him.

 He had just settled into a rhythm when it was disturbed.  He stopped and then bunk kept going above him. Ron almost laughed. Harry had been above him with the same silent idea.   It was almost too much. He heard Harry hiss quietly between his teeth. Ron shook the bunk harder, groaning very quietly.  He wanted Harry to hear him. He didn’t care if Hermione did. She would have to understand. He doubted she would ever bring it up.   

Every illicit squeak and moan reverberated in the tent.  Ron wanted it to last almost as much as he wanted it to be anything other than what it was.  This felt as desperate and as hungry as everything else around them. It was the one austerity that was completely unnecessary.  But here he was, coming into his hand like a child and a martyr again, within an arm’s reach of the people he loved most. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard Harry above him for another minute, maybe two.  He fell asleep sooner than he thought he would, straining his ears against the grey and musty silence.

 

When he left eleven days later, it felt like every other terrible thing that he had ever done.  He felt control of the argument and his temper slide away from him with horror. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy in slow motion. He felt as vindicated as he did hopeless when his faculties returned, the blood pounding in his ears.  He was alone.  


End file.
